Oct 23rd 2021

Instant economics: The real-time revolution

The world this week

Leaders

Instant economics

A real-time revolution will up-end the practice of macroeconomics

The pandemic has hastened a shift towards novel data and fast analysis

The crime scene at the heart of Africa

Insurgency, secessionism and banditry threaten Nigeria

Africa’s biggest nation faces its biggest test since its civil war 50 years ago

Don’t jump the gun

The Bank of England should not raise interest rates until 2022

But Britain may need tighter money sooner than America

An October revolution

At last, a backlash against bad government in Eastern Europe

The EU’s battles with Poland and an opposition alliance in Hungary are overdue signs of change

Be swift, be bold

The geopolitics of money is shifting up a gear

If Western countries and firms want to stay in charge of global payments they have to modernise how they happen

Letters

On Pakistan, the American navy, management, the Peshtigo fire, Ethiopia, learning classics, God

Letters to the editor

Briefing

The real-time revolution

Enter third-wave economics

How the pandemic reshaped the dismal science

United States

Crunch time

Striketober: American workers take to the picket lines

Race and class

Ethnic-studies lessons benefit low-achieving non-white pupils

Considering the lobster

Maine relies on its marine life, but climate change will alter what that means

Toying with the nanny state

California’s approach to gendered toys says a lot about the state’s political direction

Devious licks

TikTok and toxic memes

Oregone

Snickerdoodle and secession in eastern Oregon

Lexington

Reconstructing America

The Americas

Jobs for the comrades

Pedro Castillo, Peru’s new president, tries to seem less left-wing

President anti-vaxxer

Jair Bolsonaro is accused of crimes against humanity in Brazil

Not ageing gracefully

As Mexico ages, public services are not keeping up

Asia

From gulag to ordinary grumbles

Uzbekistan’s president abolished slave labour. What next?

Extremists v ultra-extremists

The Taliban find themselves on the wrong side of an insurgency

Valley of fear

Militants are targeting Hindu and Sikh civilians in Kashmir

Outside job

Singapore is cracking down on foreign political interference

Banyan

Restarting Asian tourism will be harder than shutting it down

China

Poetry from the gulag

In Xinjiang, officials are trying to stamp out Uyghur identity

Glide and seek

China’s test of a hypersonic missile worries America

Chaguan

The confidence of China’s Communist Party is striking

Middle East & Africa

When things fall apart

How kidnappers, zealots and rebels are making Nigeria ungovernable

Capital cities

Three places that dream of becoming Africa’s Singapore

Probing too deep

How an investigation led to a gun battle in Lebanon

Andy Warhol and the ayatollahs

Iran’s impressive collection of Western art

Europe

Winter is coming

Ukrainians are coping stoically with Russian aggression

The unexpected challenger

A small-town mayor takes on Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban

Liberty lady

Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the new hope of Spain’s right

Green-lit

Olaf Scholz’s “traffic-light” coalition is taking shape

Trouble and knife

Europe is in a muddle over ritual slaughter

Charlemagne

In the EU, every leader becomes a monarch

Britain

Ready for a leap in the dark

Why the Bank of England is looking unusually hawkish

Making a pig’s ear of it

The British government belatedly tries to prevent a porcine tragedy

Decarbonising Britain

Britain has ambitious climate-change plans—and two problems

Doffing the cap

The government wants pension funds to help with levelling up

Railing against modernity

A plan to revive Britain’s rural railways gathers steam

Call in the troops, again

The British state is becoming worryingly reliant on its armed forces

Bagehot

The death of Sir David Amess holds lessons for British politics

International

A reckoning in Glasgow

Broken promises, energy shortages and covid-19 will hamper COP26

Business

The third star

Samsung Electronics wants to dominate cutting-edge chipmaking

About-face

Facebook’s rumoured name-change reflects ambition—and weakness

Bartleby

The meaning of mission statements

There is gas in them hills

All manner of industries are piling into the hydrogen rush

Chinese business

Zhongwang, a Chinese aluminium giant, resists American pressure

Schumpeter

Huawei should dissolve, disperse and seed China’s high-tech future

Finance & economics

From the sublime to the subpar

A triple shock slows China’s growth

Evergrande plans

Time for orderly resolution for Evergrande is running out

Go with the float

What to make of the new bitcoin-linked exchange-traded fund

Hawk descending

Jens Weidmann steps down from the Bundesbank

Message in a battle

The race to redefine cross-border finance

Buttonwood

Why it matters when trades settle

Free exchange

How soaring energy costs could hobble the covid-19 recovery

Science & technology

Inside the garage of the future

Servicing and repairing electric cars requires new skills

Hands off the wheel

The hard job of teaching autonomous cars to drive

Wave energy

A simple but ingenious mechanism may give wave power a boost

Tuberculosis

Most resistance-causing mutations in TB have now been identified

Evolution in action

The Mozambique civil war created tuskless elephants

Culture

Entertainment in the Arab world

Streaming services are helping Arab producers liven up television

Endangered foods

Human diets are becoming less diverse, a new book warns

The coast of dystopia

A cautionary tale from the streets of San Francisco

Spies and the stage

A new book explores the symbiosis of espionage and entertainment

Economic & financial indicators

Indicators

Economic data, commodities and markets

Graphic detail

Strictly come jabbing

The impact of vaccine mandates is modest, but potentially crucial

Obituary

A soldier in Washington